Movies out Today: 13 May 2016

It’s Friday the 13th and we don’t have a single horror movie opening today, unless you count taking your kids to see a movie based on a cellphone game scary?

The Angry Birds Movie

In the 3D animated comedy, The Angry Birds Movie, we’ll finally find out why the birds are so angry. The movie takes us to an island populated entirely by happy, flightless birds–or almost entirely. In this paradise, Red (Jason Sudeikis), a bird with a temper problem, speedy Chuck (Josh Gad), and the volatile Bomb (Danny McBride) have always been outsiders. But when the island is visited by mysterious green piggies, it’s up to these unlikely outcasts to figure out what the pigs are up to.

Um, I don’t know if whoever wrote that synopsis has actually played Angry Birds, but we already know why the birds are angry. It’s at the start of the game, isn’t it? In any case, The Angry Birds Movie is pretty average. It’s an energetic and entertaining family friendly movie, but it’s entirely predictable with a feather-light plot, and not likely to break any new ground in the genre like The Lego Movie did. So far, it’s only managed to score 50% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

SNL alumni Tina Fey steps into the well-worn shoes of journalist Kim Barker in Paramount Pictures’ adaptation of Barker’s memoir The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which details her years as a reporter in Pakistan and Afghanistan beginning in 2002.

Deftly dancing between comedy, drama, and a little bit of romance, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot had a lot to cover, and it does so very well. It might not end up being as deep and thoughtful as it could have been, or as laugh-out-loud funny, but thanks to the witty script, steady pace and the immensely charming cast lead by Tina Fey, it still ends up a sweetly entertaining film, with 3.5/5 stars from Kervyn.

The Perfect Match

Charlie is a playboy who’s convinced that relationships are dead even though his sister, a therapist, tries to tell him otherwise. His best friends bet him that if he sticks to one woman for one month, he’s bound to fall in love. Charlie takes the bet because he believes that he’s immune to love…that is until he crosses paths with the beautiful and mysterious Eva. Turning on his irresistible charm, Charlie coaxes Eva into a casual affair but soon finds out that Eva has turned the tables on him. Now Charlie is questioning whether he may actually want more than just a one night stand.

Diligently following the well-worn path of an ensemble rom-com, The Perfect Match does its utmost best to be charming, pleasant and likeable. In the process though, it turns to trite, predictable, forgettable fluff, and the stilted script lacks any form of emotional involvement. Still, if you don’t mind trite, predictable, forgettable fluff, then don’t let the 29% on Rotten Tomatoes deter you.

Uitvlucht

UITVLUCHT tells the story of Anna (Clara Joubert van den Bergh), a teacher who through an extramarital affair loses everything that matters to her in life. In her heartache she finds a job at a farm school called Uitvlucht in the Eastern Cape. As she is confronted with the choices she made in her life, she slowly start experiencing healing and restoration and learns to forgive herself. She starts accepting her circumstances and the fact that someone will love her again. With the support of the teachers and Dok (Stian Bam), a kind hearted and friendly farmer, who visits the school and make friends with Anna, she finds the courage to re-build herself and others around her.

The only thing I can pick up from that trailer is that the subtitles sometimes didn’t match the dialogue, which I guess means that my Afrikaans is improving? Yay, go me! Anyway, Uitvlucht is brought to you by Regardt van den Bergh, the same filmmaker behind Faith like Potatoes and Klein Karoo, so you can expect lots of drama and emotion, but probably a happy ending as well.

Competitions

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is apparating into cinemas today, which should get all the Potterheads out there screaming in delight. And we're adding to that excitement by revealing the five winners of magical movie hampers worth R2000 each.

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